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CHICAGO – The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the ¾«¶«´«Ã½ (ALA), has selected 10 adult books with special appeal to teen readers to receive the 2015 Alex Awards. The awards, sponsored by the Margaret A. Edwards Trust and Booklist, were announced today at the ¾«¶«´«Ã½Midwinter Meeting in Chicago, Jan. 30 – Feb. 3.

The 2015 Alex Award winners are:

All the Light We Cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, published by Scribner, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. (9781476746586)

Bellweather Rhapsody, by Kate Racculia, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company (9780544129917)

Bingo’s Run, by James A. Levine, published by Spiegel & Grau, an imprint of the Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company (9781400068838)

Confessions, by Kanae Minato, translated by Stephen Snyder, published by Mulholland Books, an imprint of Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. (9780316200929)

Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng, published by The Penguin Press, a member of Penguin Group LLC, a Penguin Random House Company (9781594205712)

Lock In, by John Scalzi, a Tor Book published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC (9780765375865)

The Martian, by Andy Weir, published by Crown Publishers, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company (9780804139021)

The Terrorist’s Son: A Story of Choice, by Zak Ebrahim with Jeff Giles, published by TED Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc. (9781476784809)

Those Who Wish Me Dead, by Michael Koryta, published by Little, Brown and Company, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. (9780316122559)

Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle, published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (9780374292089)

“The winning titles for the 2015 Alex Awards will take readers from the battlefields of World War II to a haunted hotel in the Catskills and on to an ill-fated mission to Mars," said Paige Battle, chair of the committee. “From the rich but constricted interior lives of teens, to their struggles and triumphs, this list represents an array of adolescent voices that will appeal to a wide range of readers.”

The Alex Awards were created to recognize that many teens enjoy and often prefer books written for adults, and to assist librarians in recommending adult books that appeal to teens. A full list of official nominations will be available online at .

The award is named in honor of the late Margaret Alexander Edwards, fondly called “Alex” by her closest friends, a pioneer in providing library services to young adults. At Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, Edwards used adult books extensively with teens to broaden their experience and enrich their understanding of themselves and their world.

Members of the 2015 Alex Awards Committee are: Chair, Paige Battle, Grant High School, Portland, Ore.; Joni Richards Bodart, School of Information, San Jose (Calif.) State University; Angela Craig, Charlotte (N.C.) Mecklenburg Library; Kathleen Fernandes, Lake Forest Park, Wash; Francisca Goldsmith, Portland, Maine; Summer Hayes, King County Library System, Tukwila, Wash.; Adela Peskorz, Metropolitan State University, St. Paul, Minn.; Kenneth Petrilli, New Rochelle (N.Y.) Public Library; Kristen Thorp, Anythink Wright Farms, Thornton, Colo.; Award Administrative Assistant Danielle Jones, Multnomah County Library, Portland, Ore.; and Booklist Consultant, Sarah Hunter, Chicago.

For more than 50 years, YALSA has worked to build the capacity of libraries and librarians to engage, serve and empower teens. For more information about YALSA or to access national guidelines and other resources go to , or contact the YALSA office by phone, (800) 545-2433, ext. 4390, or e-mail, yalsa@ala.org.

For information on the Alex Awards and other ¾«¶«´«Ã½Youth Media Awards, please visit .

Contact:

Macey Morales

Media Relations Manager

312-280-4393

mmorales@ala.org

Heather Cho

Media Relations Specialist

312-280-4020

hcho@ala.org

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